<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It is becoming a verbal tic — <span style='font-size: 11pt'>the tendency on the part of the president to tell wealthy Americans ("people like me" he's always careful to add) that they have made more than enough money and will have to cough up more of it for the government.</span> <span style='font-size: 14pt'>Speaking for himself on July 11, the president offered that he had "hundreds of thousands of dollars that I don't need."</span>

The president is of course welcome to donate as much of his extra money as he likes to the federal treasury. He knows Timothy Geithner personally and can probably get a guarantee that his check will be cashed without delay. <span style='font-size: 11pt'>And since the president is so ready to impute unpleasant motives (like greed) to those who oppose tax increases, perhaps we should impute some sort of moral failing to him for not having thus far contributed his spare change to the government.</span> ...

The president may be perfectly confident that the best use of his excess cash is to pay more taxes. Those who live in the real world may consider the government hopelessly wasteful and inefficient. <span style='font-size: 11pt'>If the president really wants to get the most bang for his charity buck, he'd be far better advised to donate to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America or the Wounded Warriors Fund than to the IRS.</span>

Even the spending Democrats consider their greatest achievement, Medicare, is grossly wasted. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Anderson recently summarized his Pacific Research Institute study on the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. It's a familiar Democratic refrain that government spending keeps increasing because it is attempting to keep pace with rising health care costs. <span style='font-size: 11pt'>But that may be backward. As Anderson shows, the costs of these two flagship federal health programs have grown much faster than other health care costs in America.

Since 1970, "health costs apart from Medicare and Medicaid have grown 41 percent per patient in relation to GDP, while Medicare's and Medicaid's costs have grown 89 percent and 91 percent — nearly doubling — as a share of GDP."</span> Anderson mentions one reason for the disparity: In Medicare, if providers get it right the first time, they get paid once. <span style='font-size: 11pt'>If it takes them four or five times — at seniors' inconvenience and sometimes at their peril — they get paid four or five times as much.</span>" ...

<span style='font-size: 11pt'>Every time the president demands higher taxes, he is resisting reform that could transform our government, our economy and our fiscal predicament.</span> Even the faculty club set from whom he takes advice must realize by now that without substantial new growth, the United States is in real trouble. The president himself agreed in 2009 that "you don't raise taxes in a recession." ...

We are not technically in a recession. But we are in the kind of sluggish economy that the heavy boot of government creates. Resistance to tax hikes is shorthand for "no to all that." ...</div></div>

Mr President ... it's time to put up, or shut up. (http://news.yahoo.com/presidents-excess-income-ours-070000692.html)

llotter

07-12-2011, 10:06 AM

There probably isn't more than a handful of citizens that volunteer excess contributions to the IRS because everyone knows of the extreme waste and inefficiency in the federal government. Currently 41% of our economy is consumed by government and what has it gotten us but extreme problems and more debt.

Just in case anybody has forgotten, it is the 59% that is the engine of our lifestyle, the provider of the 'good life' and everything we see all around us. Just imagine how much better off everyone would be if instead of just 59%, the private sector was 70 or even 80 or 90% of our economy. It is the difference between South Korea and North Korea.

LWW

07-12-2011, 11:09 AM

I'm sure the group is quite small ... and I'm not among them.

That being said, I don't go around demanding that others do what I won't.

I do ask why the left never calls out Obama on his hypocrisy.

llotter

07-12-2011, 12:29 PM

Because The Moron's hundreds of thousands is about worthless when its hundreds of billions that are needed and everyone is know this, therefore it is not looked at as hypocrisy. His position is the same as many liberals who look to government as the best entity to solve problems, everyone must contribute to the extent of there ability, not just those who are faithful to the state.

The best world is one where there are no problems for individuals because Big Brother is always there to take care of them. This Marxist model does not result in a police state because the central power just fades away because all problems are essentially non-existent. Again, the fallacy is that the state is incapable of actually solving the problems but only makes them worse. The 'managers' are stuck in a perpetual statist nightmare with small problems growing worse and worse and government growing bigger and bigger. We are experiencing this now as the problems, all caused by government's previous attempts at solutions. In fact, it appears that until government gets involved, all problems are small.

LWW

07-12-2011, 03:10 PM

It is amazing that the rank and file leftist cannot conceive of anyone helping one's fellow man without the cold steel bayonet of the state at one's back to force one's actions.